"Collective structures of imagination - image - myth - society"

Wroclaw, Poland, June 6-8, 2019

Place: Wroclaw University

Website: jungianconference.pl

Jung often pointed out that the presence of many people together exerts great suggestive force – unconscious projections, unconscious identification, the phenomenon of participation mystique, group thinking etc. In one of his papers he wrote:

“If any considerable group of persons are united and identified with one another by a particular frame of mind, the resultant transformation experience bears only a very remote resemblance to the experience of individual transformation. A group experience takes place on a lower level of consciousness than the experience of an individual. This is due to the fact that, when many people gather together to share one common emotion, the total psyche emerging from the group is below the level of the individual psyche. If it is a very large group, the collective psyche will be more like the psyche of an animal, which is the reason why the ethical attitude of large organisations is always doubtful. The psychology of a large crowd inevitably sinks to the level of mob psychology.” (CW 9i, par. 225)

During our conference we will follow the above Jung’s observation by creating space for further study and analysis of the contemporary emergent figures of the collective conscious or unconscious experiences seen from Jungian and psychodynamic perspective. Our efforts will be especially focused on the three dimensions:

on a presence and shaping power of the archetypes through contemporary myths and belief systems,

on the images and visual expressions of the collective experiences and

on the social patterns of acting observed in different cultural, social or geopolitical contexts.

At the conference we will propose collective, wider reflections on the contemporary dynamics of the ‘collective psyche’ which will be articulated in the terms of the key Jungian concepts and findings. Our goal will be also to develop applicability of Jungian thought to wider range of the contemporary social phenomenon. We want to describe, discuss and analyse not only the collective processes observed in terms of collective life in Europe, America or Asia but also to study the collective processes observed in totality of human domain living at present on the Earth.

Thus the proposed conference is directed not only to Jungian scholars, Jungian analysts, psychologists or psychiatrists, but also to the researchers representing other general areas: philosophy, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, political science, medicine etc.

A major task will be to outline the contemporary usefulness and applicability of Jung's ideas at the beginning of XXI century while simultaneously making a critical review of this theory.

We invite you to join us together with those who use Jung's concepts in their studies, practice and various forms of research.

If you are interested in participating in these efforts we would like to invite you to join us by sending a proposal of for a presentation.

All proposals should be submitted either via the EasyChair.org website:

or by sending to the email address conference@jungpoland.org. About the registration process you can read in the separate section of this website.

The time for one presentation - 30 minutes.

Deadline for the applications - 30.04.2019. The application should also contain a summary (up to 500 words), which can be published in the conference program and a short note about the author. These documents should be sent in txt, pdf or doc format.

Regards,
Organizing Committee

* The organizing committee would like to thank for promoting the conference: